Another CDV added to the collection. My first Mathew Brady CDV with the Washington DC studio imprint. I suspect that she was a circus sideshow performer, because even in the Victorian era when zaftig women were more popular, she is not the kind of zaftig that the Victorians found sexy.

Also note the book under her foot. I suspect it was just a posing prop to give her body some form and dynamic, but it would be interesting to know if there were something meaningful to the book underfoot. Books were a very common studio prop, usually held in the hand, to indicate that the subject was literate and had some kind of intellectual accomplishment. By extension, stepping on a book would seem to imply a deliberately and blatantly anti-intellectual attitude, which would have been at extreme odds with the contemporary ethos, and would seem out of character for a studio like Mathew Brady’s – he went out of his way to cultivate associations with the best and the brightest of his day. So it’s probably just a posing device, no meaning implied.

This is an E&HT Anthony reprint of a Mathew Brady CDV of “Fightin” Joe Hooker, appointed by Lincoln to lead the Union armies after Burnside’s disaster at Fredericksburg. Hooker didn’t last long after, meeting his tactical doom at Chancellorsville. This is not a rare version of the image, but rather an 1860s equivalent of a celebrity collector card – people would assemble albums featuring the politicians, generals, stars of the stage, and other celebrity types (Barnums’ Circus freaks, writers, poets, and so on). Unlike today where people, mostly teenagers, collect pictures of their favorite stars, in the 19th century it was not uncommon to find these cartes mixed in with the family album, and collected by the senior members of the family, not just star-struck children.

Like this:

On a spur-of-the-moment thing, I’m running off to Puerto Rico for a weekend with my dad. I have an underwater film camera with external flash, which is all fine and dandy, but it is rather bulky, so I decided to stop by my local camera store and see what was on the menu in a digital point-n-shoot. I walked out with an Olympus 6020 Stylus Tough. It seems to have a lot of potential, so we’ll see what I get from it. I’m hoping I can get some interesting shots from the bioluminescent bay. I’ve had a lot of fun in the past doing underwater photos, but of course there’s always been the frustration of having the 36 frame limit. Now, with a 4GB card I can shoot a lot more than that, and even do movies. It’s not much bigger than my phone (thicker, but not as long, and about as tall) so it fits nicely in a pocket. The LCD on the back is not the sharpest (my iPhone screen is WAY better, but it ought to be). For daytime/land-based photography I’m still going to bring my Contax G2 and a bunch of Ektar 100. THAT has been the rock star in my travel photography world – I brought back images from Barcelona that turned into enough sales to virtually pay for the trip.

I’ll be relying on my dad as a tour guide of sorts for this trip, because he’s been there several times, and this is my first. We’re staying in Old San Juan, and I’m looking forward to spending some time at El Morro and San Cristobal, as well as walking the colonial streets and doing a little shopping. If I’m lucky I’ll bring back one of the Vejigante masks and you’ll get to see it in some of my upcoming photo work from the new studio. For those who don’t know what a Vejigante mask is, it’s a Puerto Rican cultural icon – they’re a combination of native, African and Spanish culture. Made for Carnival, they’re supposed to scare away evil spirits. Part of the culture of wearing the masks is to go around with an animal-skin bladder full of air and spank people with it to chase away any ghosts or devils that may have gotten ahold of them. This spiritual quality of the practice is somewhat belied by the fact that the primary targets of the swattings seem to be pretty women, so it’s more of a pick-up line than an exorcism in contemporary use.

I was out to my parents’ house for lunch yesterday, and on a whim, as we were discussing possible family vacation plans, I decided that it was time to bring the studio camera from their basement down to the studio (a much more logical place for it to live). So with a bit of clever maneuverings, we drove their Toyota Highlander across the snow-filled yard (they still have a good 6 inches on their grass) and pulled it up at the basement door. Mom had this fear that the Toyota (with a good 8 inch ground clearance) would get stuck in the snow, so she got on the John Deere lawn tractor with the snow-blower and blew a path from the driveway to the basement door. Completely un-needed, and she probably did more harm to the lawn with the John Deere (which had chains on the tires) than the Toyota would have.

Dad and I got the camera stand out of the basement, which was a minor miracle, as my dad is 72, with a bad back, and the stand is made of solid oak and cast iron. It fit, barely, in the back of the Highlander with the rear seats folded forward. On the way home I rounded up a couple friends and we unloaded everything down at the studio much easier than getting the stand into the back of the car (it helps that the studio is at street level and we only had to take the stand up one single step to get it in the back door. While I have the Highlander, I’m going to do another run over to the studio today with a bunch of accessories, and try to get the space a bit more organized.

The scan does not do the original justice. An amazingly beautifully preserved CDV of a Barnum performer. She was originally from Kokomo, Indiana. Hired in 1879 at age 11, she weighed 28 lbs. The photo is then most likely also from that year or within a year or two after that date.

Like this:

Just added two more cartes-de-visite to the collection, both Mathew Bradys. My first Brady celebrity card – General Joseph Hooker, and my first Brady from his Washington studio. The DC studio mark seems far more rare than the New York studio, so far. Maybe I’m just not looking in the right places for them, but out of the seven I have, only one is the DC studio, and of the ones I’ve looked at, maybe 50 or so, I think I’ve only seen the DC imprint two or three times.

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About DC Photoartist

Scott Davis is a large format photographer working with antique and historic photographic processes. His work has been exhibited internationally. He is a published author on platinum/palladium printing, and teaches classes in platinum/palladium and gum bichromate techniques. His personal work includes the DC cityscape and the human figure.